


The third wish

by historymiss



Category: Gideon the Ninth
Genre: Gen, mean lady hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 06:36:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21297125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historymiss/pseuds/historymiss
Summary: Once upon a time, a princess was born dead.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	The third wish

The air in the laboratory is thick with disuse, stale and heavy. Ianthe fancies it fills her mouth, like water, like blood.

Off to her right Naberius is dying. 

Corona is crouched in a corner like a hunted animal. Her eyes are large, and luminous with horror, and she is worrying unselfconsciously at her lower lip, her own blood running in fitful trickles down her chin.

“Anthy....” Ianthe’s own lip twists at the nickname. The childish snare that her twin tries to throw around her heart.

“Don’t do it. Don’t try it, Coronabeth.” She flinches deliciously at the use of her full name. “I don’t need you.”

Here is a story: once upon a time, a princess was born dead.

Coronabeth had entered the world mere minutes before Ianthe, scrawny fists jerking with the force of her fury as she cried herself purple, her umbilical cord wrapped around the neck of her still, pale twin. Their father the king always liked to tell the story as proof of their supposed closeness. Ianthe preferred to think of it as a warning.

One would have thought that, given such a fraught beginning, the twins would be allowed some time apart- not so the princesses of Ida. They were destined to be a matched set from the moment of their conception, two thirds of a trio and the hope of their house. Never mind that Ianthe is frail and faded, never mind that Corona’s pudgy little hands keep grasping for their mother’s sword. Their father wanted the twin necromancers of Ida, so that is what they are.

Ianthe and Coronabeth share a room for Corona’s entire life. They fall asleep to each other’s breathing, their presence threaded together through their dreams. Ianthe flows into the spaces Corona leaves, and when they’re tested for necromantic ability at two, it’s just obvious to her that she has to make up for what her twin lacks. By the time she realizes that she holds all the power, Ianthe has been maintaining the deception for so long that it comes as easy as breath, and Corona takes it for granted that her twin sister will provide for them both.

Ianthe learns to fade into the background, becoming nothing but the spiteful shade, the bitter, overlooked sister. It’s an easy role to play, and half the emotions are genuine anyway, if a little more complicated than most would expect. Naberius never even suspects a thing, which isn’t exactly surprising, as Corona’s blossoming beauty is bright enough to blind him to most of what’s going on. Beauty is a magic all it’s own, Ianthe thinks ruefully at yet another party, watching her sister sit, glittering, in Naberius’ lap. She pulls as curl of his hair around his finger and crunches the strands between her teeth, as if this will achieve anything without Ianthe’s will.

She withholds the trick for just long enough to watch Corona’s eyes widen in panic. 

Three, Ianthe considers, and will consider again, in the bowels of Canaan House as she licks Naberius’ blood in a slow trickle down her forearm, is an exceptionally lonely number.

“Take me.” Corona tries, again. She doesn’t look up, doesn’t watch the change coming over her sister already, the blurring at the edges of her body as she ascends beyond her twin’s reach.

“I can give you power too, Ianthe. Please.”

Ianthe uses the last of herself, unhallowed, to plant a kiss on her sister’s head, and take one last taste of her sweat, her tears.

“Corona.” Ianthe turns away, and will not look at her again.

“You never had anything I wanted.”


End file.
